Friday, 22 March 2013

Amorphous Boundaries

The change comes suddenly, created by a drop of only a few metres and a distance measured in cycle lengths: a new place, another world. We’ve been flat-running alongside a lake, the landscape high, open, impoverished Bolivian puna, when the road suddenly plunges into a tight ravine. The walls rear up, the horizon shortens, the sky shrinks. Trees swell and stretch, the cliffs drip ferns and vines. We’ve stepped over a boundary. Plunged down into cloud forest.

The descent continues, this plunge through a tangle of contours, this dive into the dank arboreal. Humidity and heat in an inverse proportion with altitude, my bike in a thrall to gravity. Exuberant foliage swells and swallows all our views, a man leaves the road, the jungle eats him up. The boiling mist that’s newly sprung from the valleys, the mossed limb that hosts a fernery. The tangled skein of trailing lianas, the swelling cordage of buttress roots, the vibrant flicker of waltzing butterflies, the incessant cadence of vibrating cicadas, the raucous caw of concealed birds. The roadside weed of flowering orchids. Verdant assault. Stereotypical jungle.

The pinwheeling, the careening, the blitz screaming. A swift cuts the sky. Such grace, such effort just to catch a fly. A fly in the desert? It seems unlikely. No fly-struck carrion, no rotting vegetation, no obvious source of contagion. Yet it and it’s neighbours have established a squat, burrow tunnels hollowed from the soft, exfoliating sandstone. But why here?

We round a corner and ride through a deep rock cut, passing through another boundary and along a timeline of geological evolution to encounter an agricultural revolution. The polychrome of tan and dun meets the monochrome of green and monoculture. The wind-vexed, desiccated sand batters into flooded wetland paddy rice. A ribbon of monocrop fills to the brim the narrow valley, mirroring the twisting flow of the provender river.Verdant assault.

NEW!

Scroll down to the bottom to see the map and route of this year's adventure.

*** You can also get mini-updates on Facebook - you can find me using my full name (Lesley Peebles Brown). I'm sure there is a smart way to put automatic links in, but my brain has not unfankled that one yet.

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The Conspirators

The Navigator: forager, bean counter and now editor. Best observed when at the checkout, flicking through a dross of coinage from four countries. Understood to have been educated in the mid-70s in NE England before being promoted to a tertiary education in Aberdeen. Executed a u-turn out of science and into self-employed accountancy before landing the dream job as a Steward for Historic Scotland. Came to adventure cycling after having been dragged around as a spousal brake on one too many of Scotland's Munros.

The Chronicler: sometime cook and bike guard. Best observed outside supermarkets or women's underwear shops, avoiding eye contact with over-interested poky-fingered little boys. Emerged out of a Glasgow education in the early 70s then to Aberdeen and a diploma in Agriculture. Picked daffodils, dug potatoes, milked cows, planted trees, cut lettuces, drove JCBs. Came to cycling after running out of Munros.

You understand the charges that have been placed before you? This is one of the worst cases that has ever come before my court. You have wilfully and wantonly flaunted the traditions of this country. You have shown flagrant disrespect for the mores of our society. Not only have you offended on this occasion, but there are a further 6 counts against you, all in the last 10 years. I find your behaviour reprehensible. You are both serial offenders. On all these occasions you have avoided Christmas, and worse, escaped the Scottish winter. How do you plead?